A Day Out

A day out in London is a genuinely a whole day when you live in North Yorks ! I left home at 6am to get the 6.25 bus to get the 7.35 train and got home at 11pm. Of the 17 hours that took up, I spent almost 10 hours either sitting on , or waiting for, either a bus, a train or the London Underground ! The seven hours that were left were brill !
During the morning my daughter and I went to Leighton House - an incredible space with Islamic tiles to take your breath away - no photos allowed but the ones in my head are brilliant, and it's half price entry with a Nat Trust card ! On the way back , I saw this lovely sign -

had no time to check it out as we were on our way to lunch ! We had a delicious lunch and the hour and a half we took over it was a lovely respite from the heat and crowds.
After lunch we went to the National Gallery

A feast for the eyes this time and we spent a long time here - the paintings etc to illustrate the different pigments and how they were obtained and used , as well as how they have reacted with time,  were spot on. The exhibition was arranged in a rainbow of rooms with a general room on colour theory to start and a gold and silver room tagged onto the end of the rainbow. I hadn't realised how lacking my knowledge was. We had booked online and had bought half price audio guides which really enhanced the information in the galleries.
When we came out into Trafalgar square, it was thronged with people of every hue too - a cheery kaleidoscope of masses of people enjoying the sun and a whole phalanx of living statues ! I was very taken with this on the fourth plinth !

More to eat then - tea and cake - well one has to keep one's strength up, before the last tube of the day back to Kings Cross. I sat opposite a lovely poem called Small Brown Job - unfortunately the pic I took is rather blurred but I hope to use it in a journal sometime - will have to see if I can enhance it a bit. All in all a really good day plus the trains were on time !

EG Residential

Had a brilliant weekend at Bishop Burton  - three of us from Harrogate all chose the Linda Westerman tutored  '3D images.'  The requirements list was quite sparse and we all found ourselves wishing for (sometimes) obvious things we'd not brought. It did however encourage a culture of helping and sharing and improvising and Linda was more than generous with her stash.
I took some skeleton chinese lanterns that I picked from the garden last winter before they got too manky and decided I would work on them.

As you can see, the one I chose was very well preserved, even down to the shrivelled seed inside. I then sampled a selection of ways I thought might suit the construction. You will be surprised that I started by drawing the pod - somewhat simple not to say naive, but a drawing nevertheless ! I then sampled machine sewn grids on various papers,  free machined scrim etc as well as cake wire supported shapes on paper and dissolvable. Machine gridded tissue paper was the most delicate sample and though I was able to produce a piece that held its shape by painting it with watered down pva, I decided it would be too difficult to join unsupported pieces so made my sections by machining lightweight cake wire petals over the tissue grid. They were coloured with tea and rubbed to produce a lacy effect and then handsewn into shape - a small wooden bead made the 'seed'.

I was really pleased with the effect and the delicate piece that I ended up with.


I then made another pod by machining the cakewire petals onto dissolvable and free machining the grid. This produced a more robust pod with a lacier effect but which wasn't as delicate as either the paper one or the actual lantern.

I finished the project by making a wired book cover to contain a zigzag of my samples.

Everyone had a really worthwhile weekend and we were all of the opinion that we had chosen the 'best' course!

Hurrah for Yorkshire !

Hope everyone watched the incredible footage of le tour - didn't Yorkshire show the world an amazing event ?
The atmosphere in our small town was incredible with people thronging the streets from early on and every one of them was smiling and good humoured. I cannot find words to say what a totally brilliant day we had on Saturday and the places on Sunday were just as amazing (if not quite so pretty !)

On yer bike !

Part of the Caravane - how good is Miffy!

Youth club sculpture - recycled cycle

Cote de Buttertubs - and Black Sheep beer

No pics of the peloton - watched it !

Screen Printing with Dionne Swift

Had a really good day at Rural Arts in Thirsk the other week with Dionne Swift.
We painted with procion dyes directly onto a screen then textured with table salt, rock salt and rice. The screen was left to dry so that the texturing stuff could be rubbed off, then the screen was printed using manutex to push the dye onto the fabric (pfd from Whaleys).
This was my first 'play' using an A4 screen and the object was just to try the technique and see the effects of a second or even a third print.

As you can see, I just painted on colour with no particular theme in mind, but it was useful to gauge the advatages and limitations of the technique.
My 'proper' piece was planned to be a sea/beach background to stitch into ad this was done on an A2 screen.
First print -

2nd print

I didn't bother trying a third as almost all the colour was off my screen. I left an untextured area to distinguish between sky and sea but was unable to keep the colour clean. I was really pleased with both my prints and am looking forward to stitching into them, though I may not keep the whole fabric intact - a bit large for me, especially as most of what I have done for the last year has been A5 !

Le Tour s'arrive !

Well it will be here tomorrow but our small town has been buzzing since early morning when I believe, (several emails from friends) that it was featured on Good Morning, this morning. The local primary school was assembled to paint a giant yellow sheep on a bicycle on the square - hopefully it will be picked up by one of the helicopters that are following the tour and our fame will be spread far and wide as long as it is not washed away by the rain which has been falling steadily for the last couple of hours ! As one of the Breweries says on their Tshirts - the middle of nowhere but the centre of the Universe.
No pic to show - can't get high enough to get it in . We do have, in common with all the towns and villages on the route, a stone marker cairn with a carved white rose on top to commemorate the event. We are awash with yellow bikes and bunting and the beer tents and food stalls are arriving plus the market stalls etc - all we need is a bit of luck with the weather and on with the party !
To mark the event, the local Embroiderers Guild has made a banner ( indeed I did one of the villages myself but think I've already blogged that ) and I do have a pic of that !